When I was 8 years old my grandma bought me my first guitar, it's a tiny offbrand classical guitar, and the original strings are still on it to this day. I messed around on it for years and no matter what I did in life i'd always find myself going back to it... it was a few years later when I was about 14 that I heard "Are You Experienced?" By Jimi hendrix, for the first time in my life. It completely changed my outlook on everything, I really started to find out who "Sydney" was, and really expressed myself in the ways that I wanted to. I went out and bought a strat, a big fender amp, and dedicated every moment of spare time I had to figuring out what on earth it was i'd heard that day, and eventually fell down the rabbit hole of 60's rock, hippie culture, and eventually the really early blues and jazz cats, I really dig people like muddy waters, robert johnson, john coltrane, they really set the scene for everybody else to build off, I mean yeah I play like Hendrix, Clapton, SRV, and I write like the beatles... but would we have had that era without those guys? I'm now in deep with the guitar, and just recently built my own custom model with the help of local luthier Dick Fontaine, my "Ray" stratocaster is a true to spec 1970 reversed Stratocaster model, it's got everything I dreamed of from those super thin nitro finishes, monty's overspun 69' pickups, and a beatiful rosewood neck with white binding, mother of pearl inlays, and a giant CBS headstock. It's really a great instrument and I can't see myself ever parting with it, I don't feel I play that guitar, rather we play together, and that's what makes my music have so much soul to it.